Secret Door
by Crowdreamer
Summary: The tenth doctor and Rose travel to ancient Egypt, where the doctor's life is threatened while looking for the secret behind a strange light bulb with mystical properties. Rose tries to save him, but ends up putting him in even more jeapordy. Meanwhile, the ultimate key to their problems remains hidden in the pyramids.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's notes: **__Takes place somewhere toward the end of Series 2. Tenth doctor and Rose. This is my first Doctor Who story (although not my first fanfic), so please be gentle. __ I tend to update frequently, but I have a lot going on in my life, so updates probably won't be daily._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 1**

Body flattened against a large rectangular stone, Rose peeked around the corner to search the weary, angst-ridden faces of the workers. Their thin, nearly-bare bodies were scattered in clusters among the endless piles of massive boulders, engaged in various tasks. Some of the men stood in a line, pulling on a rope around a square chunk of stone until it inched forward. His face was not among them. She wondered how she would ever find him in the sea of workers climbing the gigantic structure like ants on a mission.

She kept searching for what seemed like hours, darting back and forth, always using the stone blocks as cover. Although she was camouflaged in a simple tunic, she would still stand out to the masters as a lone woman, her blonde hair standing out like a sore thumb. She knew he would be in the quarry, but it was the size of several football fields, and it contained thousands of slaves. But she would continue until she found him, or until she was captured once more, whichever came first. She would not give up until she found the doctor—her doctor.

Finally she spotted him, standing at the edge of a block wearing nothing but a loin cloth. His black, wispy hair had grown long and dull and hung into his face, making it impossible to see his eyes. But she could see his exhaustion in his gritted teeth and the sweat glistening on his face. He raised his hand, and now she saw the stone hammer it grasped. Swinging it down with protruding muscles, he slammed it against a chisel in his other hand on the face of the rock, and then lifted his arm and did it again. '_Ching, ching, ching,' _it sang out, over and over again, as he slammed the hammer down repetitively, smoothing out the face of the boulder.

'My poor doctor,' she thought. 'I wonder how long . . .'

But she could already tell from his skinny frame and his weathered face that it had been far too long. She slid along the edge of the rocks until she stood only feet away from him, hiding behind a boulder so as not to reveal herself to the watching guard, who wore one of the creepy elongated dog masks to cover up his true identity.

She knew who lurked under there, and the damage his angry race was eager to inflict. The doctor had called them the Anubis, creatures who had been mistaken for gods long ago. But she liked to call them dog-men.

The doctor stopped chiseling long enough to catch his breath, and gasped to the guard, "Please . . . I need to rest." The sun hung low in the sky, and she thought he had probably been laboring since morning. Now she saw the shackles around his feet, and it broke her heart to see him so subjugated and weary. He leaned against the wall and said, "Please . . ."

The dog-head master stared in his direction, the exact trajectory of his gaze concealed behind the mask. He lifted a whip that oozed electrical charges in glowing wisps of blue light, and Rose had to bite her tongue to keep from yelling out, "Doctor, look out!"

The whip fell hard onto the doctor's bare back, and the sound of sparking leather slapping against his skin made her recoil. She brought her hands up to her mouth and caught a gasp before it could escape her lips. Only seconds after the doctor cried out in pain, the whip smacked him again, and this time he fell to the ground on his hands and knees.

Unable to contain her rage anymore, Rose screamed out, "Leave him alone!" as she ran toward the dog-man, unconsciously picking up a heavy stone on the way. She was on the guard before he had time to react, and she tackled him with her full weight, knocking him to the ground. Without forethought, she slammed the rock into his head over and over, but it made no difference—the mask protected his head and his hands flew up defensively to grab her arms.

But Rose was high on adrenaline by then, and she managed to yank her rock-yielding arm free and jab a pointy corner of it into the dog-man's chest before he could stop her. She made contact with his rib-cage, and it knocked the wind out of him. Before he could recover, she brought the stone to his chest again and again, until he stopped moving altogether.

Realizing what she had done, she dropped the stone and cupped her hands to her mouth again, and then wiped away a torrent of tears. Then she remembered the doctor, and turned her head toward him to see him lying on his side on the dry, dusty ground.

Rushing to him, she said, "Doctor," in a hushed, worried tone.

His eyes were closed at first, but they pried open when he heard her voice. "Rose," he said, a weak smile appearing on his face and then disappearing almost as quickly as he choked on a piece of dust.

She smiled back at him, resting a hand gently on his shoulder. Then she examined his back, running a finger alongside one of the bloody gashes laced across it. "Oh, doctor," she said softly, clicking her tongue. "I don't like the looks of that. But we'd better get out of here."

She took out the sonic screwdriver, which she had tucked away in the folds of her tunic, and used it against the shackles on his legs until one by one, they clicked open and his feet were free. "Can you stand?"

Without waiting for an answer, she put one hand under his arm and hoisted him to his unsteady feet. He staggered forward in jolted, labored steps, leaning on her for support. "Come on," she urged, putting her arm around his bare back, holding him up the best she could, being careful not to put too much pressure on his open wounds.

They clamored down stone steps and stumbled to the outskirts of the operation, and Rose kept a watchful eye out for dog-headed guards as she guided the weary doctor to safety. When she wanted to hurry him, he resisted, and she remembered that his feet were bare, making them susceptible to pointy bits of gravel. "Why did I park so far away?" she asked aloud, but he was too weak to respond with a witty comeback. But she forgave herself, knowing that she had been lucky to make it back at all, let alone as close as she did.

They came to an abandoned corridor between two towering stacks of sharply cut boulders, and he gasped between gritted teeth, "I need to rest."

She glanced around to make sure they were alone, and then said softly, "Okay, Doctor," and gently lowered him to sitting on top of a flat rock.

She sat next to him, propping him up, and the full weight of his malnourished body leaned against her, panting. But he raised his drooping head and looked into her eyes lovingly with a grin. "Rose Tyler," he wheezed. "I knew you'd come back for me."

She smiled back at him and said, "Of course I did, Silly." And then her smile faded as she remembered—it had been mere minutes for her, but obviously much longer for him. "How long has it been?"

The smile stayed plastered on his lips, but his eyes turned down at the corners, and she detected a deep sadness in them. "Twenty years," he said.

Trying unsuccessfully to hide a grimace, she began to blink as tears started to carve crooked paths down her cheeks. "Oh my god, Doctor—I'm so sorry."

She hugged him to her, and he welcomed her embrace. "The important thing is that you came," he rasped.

She kissed the top of his head and caressed his matted hair, smoothing it down. A pebble ricocheted against a nearby rock, and she shot to her feet once more. "C'mon, Doctor, we have to go."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's notes: **__So I always name my stories after a song. This one is named after the song by Evanescence, and I thought the lyrics were fairly appropriate as well._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 2**

Rose helped the doctor back to his feet, and they hobbled forward together until she found the two piles of discarded rocks where she had parked the Tardis—or rather, where the Tardis had chosen to park itself. She held no illusions that her driving had much to do with how the little blue box had ended up where it had.

By the time they could see the waiting box, Rose had her arms fastened solidly around the doctor's waist and was dragging him, as he was almost too weak to walk. Once, he fell to his knees, and she had to use all her strength to pull him back to his feet. "Please, Doctor—we're so close—"

She heard footsteps coming toward them, and the doctor must have heard them too, because he grimaced and put one foot out in front of him, closing his eyes and clenching his jaw in one final push to move forward. She used the momentum to drag him a little further, and then he stepped out with his other foot, and they continued on in that fashion—step, drag, step, drag—until they reached the door of the Tardis.

Several dog-men rounded the corner as she fumbled for the key while trying to hold up the faltering doctor. As she unlocked the door, he slumped like a sack of flower. She got the door open and said, "Doctor, you've got to move! Please . . ."

But he was motionless on the ground, his torso inside the Tardis while his legs lay sprawled outside it. She grabbed him under the arms and dragged him with her last bit of strength until his entire body was inside. Slamming the door shut just as the dog-heads reached it, she locked it and turned to lean against it, sighing.

But her victory was short-lived as she turned her attention back to the doctor. She knelt down beside him, turning him on his side so she could pat his face and try to awaken him. His eyes remained closed, his thin lips parted slightly. She couldn't see any signs of breathing, and she began to panic until she saw his bare chest rise and fall in a shallow rhythm. "Oh, Doctor," she said, her voice pleading. "We have to get you better."

Unable to revive him, she had no choice but to drag him to a room that she had seen him enter only once—a room she had barely known existed until one time he had gone in when he mistakenly thought she was sleeping. She knew what it was without ever having seen the inside—it was the doctor's bedroom.

Under other circumstances, she would have marveled at the sights in his room, curiously looking through every strange knick-knack. But she was unconcerned with the surroundings now, focused only on pulling his inert body to the bed. She expected to have great difficulty hoisting him up onto the mattress, but he was surprisingly light, which made sense after twenty years of hard labor.

Once she got him settled on the bed, she sat next to him, placing her hand on his chest, first on the right side and then on the left. His left heart wasn't beating at all, and his right heartbeat was weak. Fighting back tears, she stroked his ashen cheek and said, "Don't leave me, Doctor."

Sensing that she didn't have time to waste, she got busy finding supplies and tending to his wounds, carefully washing his back and applying some sort of potent alien antibiotic cream she found in his first aid kit. Then she said, "I'm sorry, Doctor," and pulled off his loincloth. "I'm not trying to get fresh." She quickly yanked on some boxers she found in a nearby dresser, and then struggled to tug some pajamas on him. Through it all, he remained unresponsive.

His breathing was shallow, but she knew he was dehydrated and needed water. "Doctor," she said, grabbing his cheeks and shaking his head. "Doctor, wake up. Doctor . . ."

To her pleasant surprise, he reacted by stirring and mumbling, "Can't a person get some peace?"

"Doctor," she said, trying to pull him to sitting, but he was like a rag doll. "You need water. You need to sit up."

He moaned, but he sat up with her help, flopping back against the pillows she had propped up behind him. "Doctor, here," she said placing a cup of water against his lips. To her relief, he sipped at it and gulped it down, and then sipped a little more. She rewarded him with a smile and said, "That's good. That's real good, Love."

He settled back down into the covers, groaning in pain as he did. As she lay down beside him, nestling her body into his, he murmured, "Rose Tyler . . ." She waited eagerly for his next words, unsure what to expect. "Did you see me naked?"

She snickered, draping her arm over his chest. "Yeah, I did," she said. "And I have to admit I was a little impressed."

"Just a little?" he whispered, wrapping his arm around her and giving her a weak squeeze.

"Yeah, I mean, I wasn't sure what to expect, with you being an alien and all . . ." But his breathing had grown heavy again, and she could tell he had fallen asleep. "Doctor," she whispered, her voice pleading. "Please don't leave me."

As she lay next to him, absorbing the warmth of his frail body against hers, she recalled the events leading up to his enslavement, and she remembered that their whole adventure hadn't always been this dire. In fact, it had started out fun and light-hearted as usual. But now they were in ancient Egypt, and she may soon be stuck here without him if he failed to regenerate before he died.

It had all started when a light bulb went out in the Tardis . . . .


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's notes: **__I love hot and steamy. Especially when it's Rose/10. Here's a little taste.___

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 3**

Part 1.

"So, you fancy a visit home?" said the doctor, eyes lit up, hands flying over the controls on the console.

"Why would I want to do that?" said Rose, lowering her eyebrows as she examined an odd-looking flower she had brought with her from their visit to New Earth.

"You haven't seen your mother in a while."

Rose fell silent, wondering to herself why she was so resistant to visit the only people who had ever mattered before now. Perhaps she was afraid that the doctor might change his mind and leave her behind. She couldn't bear the thought.

A sizzle and a pop interrupted her thoughts, and then one area over the console went dark. "Oh, blimey. A light bulb went out," said the doctor, eyes squinting at the dark region.

It seemed like an over-reaction to Rose, especially for someone as talented as the doctor. "It's just a light bulb," she said. "How many time lords does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

The doctor lowered his eyebrows as she snickered. "What do you mean?" he said.

"How many time lords—" she started, breaking out into giggles, but then she realized his confusion was real. "It's a joke."

"Oh." He nodded dimly, and then started to remove the broken bulb. "It's more than just a light bulb." He retrieved it and held it in his hand to show her. She could see now that it was larger than a normal bulb, and shaped more like an egg.

"You don't carry a spare?"

He brought his eyes up to meet her gaze. "This is no ordinary bulb. It requires a special sort of design found only in certain select places in the universe." His eyes popped open wide and he held one finger in the air. "Wait! I just got an idea. I know where we can go to have one specially made, and I know just the person to make it."

Part 2.

As the doctor set the Tardis down gently, he said, "We're not far from our original destination, actually. Just a little earlier and a few hundred miles away."

"Where are we, Doctor?" she said, her eyes wide with anticipation.

He smiled broadly. "It's a surprise. Come on, you're going to love this."

As they neared the door of the Tardis, she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Wait, Doctor," she said, turning him to face her. She ran a few fingers through his spiky tufts of hair. "Just a little touch-up," she said, and then straightened his tie.

He squinted his eyes. "We're not going anyplace _that _fancy," he said.

"It never hurts to look your best."

With that, they exited the Tardis and stepped out onto a wide street with crowds of people walking by, women in long flowing dresses and men in suits and top hats. It was dark outside, but the streets were well-light by rows of light posts, and from here, Rose could see a wide body of water to her right, and a massive domed building with gigantic Roman arches in front of her. "What is this place, Doctor?" she asked.

His smile stretched from ear to ear. "Isn't it splendid?" he said, pausing to take in the entire scene. "We're at the Chicago World's Fair, 1893. It's a showcase of early human ingenuity. Right here, in this American town, we have the first Ferris Wheel, the first commercial moving pictures, the first moving walkway—"

"Moving walkway? Back then?"

"Yeah! Isn't it incredible? And we also have the first use of something most humans take for granted in your time—modern mass-transmitted electricity. Now we just have to find the man who created it."

"Thomas Edison?"

"No—that's what most people think. No, we're looking for Nikola Tesla. He's a brilliant man—he created so _many_ modern inventions, like AC electricity, and the laser, and something you will see here at the fair—the first ever wi-fi!" The doctor clenched his teeth together in a grin. "I taught him everything he knows. Now c'mon!"

With that, he grabbed her hand and took off running in the direction of a giant towering statue, and Rose took her cue and followed merrily behind him. Hand in hand, they dashed through the crowd, until Rose saw the towering Ferris Wheel and froze, gazing up in wonder. The doctor turned around questioningly, and she said, "I want to ride it."

"Later, after we find Tesla," he said, pulling on her hand. "I promise."

They continued on until they reached a building that looked like the outside of a circus. On the inside, it looked more to Rose like a factory, containing giant spinning wheels and machinery that she couldn't even begin to understand. They wandered around the enormous interior until the doctor spotted the person he was looking for—a tall, scrawny man with dark hair and a moustache that occupied most of his upper lip. "Nikola!" called out the doctor.

The man turned his head, and when he spotted the doctor he came to him with arms open wide. "Doctor!" he said in a thick accent that sounded like Russian to Rose's ears, and the two men embraced in a hearty hug. "I never expected to see you again. What do you think of my exhibit?"

Beaming, the doctor said, "It's magnificent. I couldn't have done a better job myself. Well—I could, but . . . it's brilliant. And now I need a favor from you."

They started into a quick-paced conversation that was like a foreign language to Rose—something about polyphase systems and rotary direct current converters and two-phase induction motors, and Rose grew bored and restless, and slipped away to see all the electronic wonders for herself.

She came upon an exhibit with beautiful neon lights, their colored designs sizzling loudly, and stood in awe that such things existed even before telephones or cars were in common use. Then she moved on, to a copper-colored egg that sat in the middle of a metal platter surrounded by nameless gadgetry, and watched while the egg began to spin wildly, seemingly of its own accord. At the next exhibit, she observed several gas-powered lights that appeared to have no wires attached to them, each one glowing in different colors.

She wandered to a less crowded part of the floor, and on a stand by itself stood one lonely-looking light bulb. It looked much like the ones she was familiar with—round and attached to a metal base. But it burned much brighter than any light bulb she had ever seen, in a brilliant golden color that reminded her of the sun. Under it, a sign read, "Hands-on exhibit—feel free to touch."

Her curiosity growing, she approached the bulb and cautiously reached out a hand, but hesitated before touching it. Surely such a dazzling object would burn her skin instantly. But they wouldn't have put such a sign on it if it was dangerous, would they?

Shrugging, she touched the light with one finger, and instantly, a pleasant tingle travelled up her arm, creating a sense of warmth and relaxation so satisfying that she closed her eyes to absorb it.

"There you are." The doctor's voice jolted her out of her trance, but she didn't move, still fixated by the allure of the light.

"Doctor, you have to see this—"

"Not now, Rose," he said, reaching for her free hand to pull her away. "We have to go with Tesla to—"

As soon as he held her hand in his, he froze, his head turning toward her, furrowed lines of confusion forming on his forehead. "Rose?" he said, his eyes fixating on hers.

"That's what I was trying to tell you, Doctor," she said, smiling.

He pointed one finger back the opposite way and said weakly, "But, I need to . . ."

After his words trailed off, the creases in the corners of his eyes softened, and his gaze into her eyes intensified. Apparently he had forgotten about whatever mission he was on, because he turned his entire body toward her, looking at her with a fervor she didn't think she had ever seen from him before.

"Rose," he said, his hand still grasping hers. "I never noticed . . . your eyes are so . . . beautiful."

She smiled even wider, noticing for the first time how his eyebrows arched perfectly over his deep brown pupils, which bounced excitedly while he stared into her eyes. Her heart began to pound as he reached his other hand up to her forehead and gently tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Doctor?" she stammered. "Are you—are you okay?"

"Never better," he said, his eyes never leaving hers.

Somehow he had leaned in close to her without her noticing, and their chests began to press into each other while she continued to stare at him without blinking. He put his hand under her chin, and she said, "Doctor, I've never felt so . . ."

But before she could get the words out, he tilted her head up and lowered his eager face to hers, and she welcomed his electrified lips against hers. Their linking mouths sent tingling charges down her spine and through her scalp, causing her to gasp. She clenched her eyes shut and kept her lips locked on his, relishing the fluid motion of his tongue flicking against the inside of her mouth.

"Mmmmm," he said, and she thought that she had never heard that sound come from him before. "Rose Tyler," he whispered, his mouth so close to her face that she could feel the words brushing against her cheek.

"What, Doctor?" she said, swallowing hard, her lips touching his skin as she said it.

He moved his lips to her ear, and his hot breath rushed into her ear, saying, "I can't get enough of you."

Their arms moved as one, encircling one another, pulling each other tight until there was not even one space between them. She placed one hand on the back of his head, pulling his face toward her until they were fastened together at the mouth once more. Their mouths explored each other, making it difficult to breathe, but she didn't care. This was the doctor—her doctor—and he was finally giving her what she had craved for so long.

But this was so much more than what she had expected. The tension between them, the static, was so transfixing that she thought it would be impossible to pry herself away from him. There was something . . . something about a light bulb.

The doctor finally wrested his lips away from her, chest still heaving against hers, and whispered, "Rose . . . something's not right."

She opened her eyes to see the slits of his dreamy eyelids, and said, "What could possibly be wrong, Doctor?"

"I don't know," he said, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. He stroked her hair. "It all feels so perfect, and yet—"

"There's something unnatural about it, isn't there?"

And then she realized—one of her hands still rested on the top of the light bulb. She withdrew her fingers from it, and slowly, the powerful energy that had filled her began to drain away, leaving a dull, normal reality in its wake. Now she frowned. "But Doctor," she said, her voice rising. "Does this mean that what we felt wasn't real?"

His arms didn't leave her, and he didn't pull away. He smiled and shook his head. "It might have been enhanced a little, but it was worth it to me." Then he let her go, and her heart sunk that the captivating moment they had together was over. "But something's not right. This technology isn't normal for this time and place. We have to find out where it came from."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's notes: **__Sigh. The feels._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 4**

Part 1.

The doctor still stood facing Rose, and he held her hands in his own. But he began the incessant talking that sometimes drove her crazy. "We have to go see Tesla. He's working on making me a new bulb for the Tardis. But we have to find out—"

She refused to meet his gaze, looking down at their hands locked together, not hearing his words. He looked over at the brightly lit bulb where her hand had been when they kissed, and he stared at it, distracted. Letting go of her hands, he went to it, and the sonic screwdriver began its familiar whirring noise.

"It's definitely alien technology—humans wouldn't even have access to the materials in this, let alone the knowledge to create it."

Apparently, he didn't notice that she wasn't paying attention, and she stared out into nothing, fighting back tears. From the corner of her eye she could see him circling the bulb and examining it from every angle, oblivious to her pain. She caught the tail end of his babbling discourse, when he said, "—we have to find the secret door."

"Really?" she said flatly. "That sounds . . . interesting."

He returned to her, facing her once more, and now he was silent. He lifted her chin so that their eyes met once again. "Rose? You okay?"

But she was too choked up to answer, and she hugged him instead, burying her face and her emotions in his shoulder. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He pulled away and said, "Well then, let's go see Tesla."

She nodded and said softly, "Alright. Let's go."

Part 2.

"Nikola—that bulb over there," said the doctor, pointing to the lonesome exhibit. "Where did it come from?"

"Oh, so you figured out that I didn't make it," said Tesla. The doctor nodded, but his squared lips told Rose that he was more concerned about it than he let on. Tesla continued, "You won't believe how we found it."

"Found it?" said the doctor, raising one eyebrow.

"Ya. There was an archaeological project near the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and the bulb was found in a box. Here, let me show you."

The lines on the doctor's forehead crowded together, and they followed Tesla to a back room, where the scientist pulled out a small white stone box. On the lid was a simple carving, and the doctor and Rose studied it intently. "A dog," said the doctor.

The face of the carving was a profile with a long, pointy snout, snarling, and spiky dog ears that faced forward menacingly. "Looks ferocious to me," said Rose.

The doctor opened the empty box, which contained nothing but a padded cloth interior. He looked up at Tesla. "And the bulb was in the box by itself—nothing else?"

"Yes," said Tesla, shaking his head. "It's the strangest thing."

The doctor straightened his back and scratched his chin. "How long will it take you to make the bulb for the Tardis?"

"I can have it ready in a couple of hours."

"Then that's when we'll leave."

"Leave to go where, Doctor?" said Rose.

"Egypt. About five thousand years ago."

Part 3.

While the doctor and Tesla talked scientific details about light bulbs, Rose stood at the doorway to the massive exhibition hall and watched the wonders of the fair. All these amazing spectacles, and yet none of them compared to the stunning few moments she had shared with the doctor. But their intimate embrace didn't seem to matter to him, and she wondered now if his feelings for her were real at all, or was all of it just a fun adventure that meant nothing? The thought saddened her.

She sensed his lean frame beside her, heard his breath next to her, just before his long, thin fingers intertwined with hers. "Rose," he said, his tone more of a question.

She pulled her hand away from his, and she sadistically hoped that the motion hurt him as much as it did her. "Rose," he said again, without touching her this time. "Are you ready to ride the Ferris Wheel?"

She smirked at him, glancing at him long enough to see whether he noticed her discontent. She couldn't tell from his stupid stoic doctor's expression. "Yeah, I suppose."

They walked close to each other to the giant wheel, and stood in line behind half a dozen people. Some stared at them in confusion because of their clothing, which must have looked odd in this day and age. Rose stared off into the distance, lost in thought, reliving their glorious kiss, and then falling into a funk over the after-effects of it.

The doctor touched her shoulder lightly. "Rose," he said, his voice heavy and worried. "What's wrong?"

Now that he had acknowledged her misery, she turned to face him. "Are we ever going to talk about what happened between us?" she said.

He paused for a moment. "I don't know what to say."

The line moved forward slightly as the next couple boarded the ride, and Rose inched forward ahead of the doctor. He caught up to her and ran his hand down the middle of her back. She turned to face him again. "I just—" she said, stopping to keep her tears in check. "Was any of it real? Or was it just the special effects of some stupid light? I thought we had something special—something as special as that kiss felt, but now it all seems so . . . artificial."

She had failed to notice that the line had moved forward several feet, until the doctor moved ahead to close the gap in the line and turned around to face her again. Then she saw that there was only one more couple in front of them. The doctor grasped her arms and said, "Rose Tyler, what we have _is _special."

"Next!" said the ride attendant impatiently.

They advanced to the ride's cabin, and the doctor held her hand and helped her aboard. Then he climbed on and sat next to her, leaving no space between them. There was a moment of disorientation as their car swung back and forth and the wheel hoisted them upwards just far enough to load the next group of passengers.

Neither one of them spoke right away, possibly sensing that their conversation would only be interrupted by the constant starts and stops of the wheel until the ride got going. But the doctor picked up her hand in his, and the warmth of it spread up her arm and into her heart.

After all the passengers were loaded, the ride began to move at a faster clip and swooped them up to staggering heights that made Rose slightly dizzy. "Whoa," she said, gasping at the tiny people below and the enormity of the fair. "This is fantastic!"

She lost herself in the moment until the doctor's voice brought her out of her trance. "It's good to see you smile again," he said.

She turned her head toward him, and forgot the rising and falling scenery spread out below as she got lost in his eyes. "Rose, I care about you very much," he said, and now he had her undivided attention. He shook his head. "That kiss in there wasn't meaningless. It was the most astounding thing I've ever experienced. And I've experienced a lot."

The ensuing silence between them brought them closer than ever, and he brought his face to hers and closed his eyes, and she shut hers tight at the same time. She didn't need to see what was coming next—she anticipated the meeting of their mouths with slightly parted lips. His hand rose to the back of her head, holding her there, as if she would ever pull away. The kiss deepened until their mouths found a hungry rhythm, and all the unspoken words between them were locked up in that one embrace.

Their connection broke with a lurch as the wheel came to a stop, and Rose's heart sank at the thought that the ride was over. But when she opened her eyes, she saw that they were still high in the air and figured they must be waiting for passengers to disembark.

"Rose Tyler," said the doctor, still lost in her gaze. "I—"

Their car lurched again, this time accompanied by a sickening screech from below. "Hold onto that thought," said the doctor, standing carefully so as not to rock their car. Rose stood next to him, and together they peeked over the edge. Far below, a man straddled the ride operator, who was lying flat on the ground, and pounded him over and over in the face. Nearby, another man tackled a gentleman in a suit and tie, knocking him to the ground. As Rose looked around, she saw groups of people everywhere fighting one another—even women, who pulled each other's hair and clawed and scratched and bit one another.

"Doctor, what's going on?" she said anxiously.

"Like I said earlier, something's not right here. We need to get down."

"But how?" She peered nervously over the edge to see that they were still a good forty meters off the ground.

"We're going to have to climb."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author's notes: **_

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 4**

Part 1.

"Have you gone mad?" said Rose, but she already knew the answer.

"We've got no other choice. The ride is broken. And obviously mayhem has broken out below," said the doctor, referring the crowds of people on the ground who had devolved into violent mobs. "So nobody's going to be able to fix this this thing for a while. We've got to get down there and find out what's going on."

Rose cautiously peered over the side of their car to the staggering distance between them and the ground. "I think I'd rather wait," she said meekly.

The doctor's face was pleading. "Rose, we may be the only ones able to stop this." She gulped and looked into his eyes, and his tone softened. "You have to trust me. I won't let anything happen to you." She nodded.

"Right, I'll go first," he said, examining their position to figure out the best way down. "The safest way would be to sort of scuttle all the way to the center on a spoke and climb down the center post. It looks like there's a ladder that would take us straight down if we could just make it to the middle." The he looked up. "But the only way to get on one of the spokes is to climb up on the edge of the car." Now he looked at her. "You ready?"

"I don't like this at all," she said.

The doctor grabbed hold of a post on the side of the car, and stepped up onto the edge of the car. "Careful, Doctor," she said as the car swung unsteadily.

She couldn't see what he grabbed onto next because the roof of the car blocked her view, but next thing she knew, his legs slid upward until they disappeared completely onto the roof of the car. Then his head popped back down, peering over the edge of the roof at her, and he said, "Ready?"

"I suppose I'm as ready as I'll ever be," she said, and reached out to grab his outstretched hand.

The doctor grasped her tightly as she stepped onto the edge of the wobbly car. "Hang on!" he said as he pulled her the rest of the way up onto the roof of the car. She started to scream, but the air had left her lungs in one giant gasp.

Once her torso was resting firmly on the roof, the doctor scrambled to pull her legs on as well, and before she knew it, she was lying flat against the roof. "Doctor," she said shakily, "I don't want to move."

He was still standing on his feet, and he reached down to grab her hand. "Come on, I've got you."

She rose unsteadily onto her feet and clutched the doctor tightly, her arms around his chest. But he pried one of her hands away and directed it to a nearby beam. "You have to hold onto this so I can climb out onto the spoke."

"Doctor," she said, unable to keep the panic from her voice. "I don't think I can do this."

"Just hold on," he said, and he let go of her. She clung tightly to the beam while he carefully inched out onto the thick metal spoke, which sloped gently down toward the center beam, holding onto a wire for support. Then he turned his head toward her and said, "Come on, Rose, you can do this."

"Oh, Doctor," she whined. "Why couldn't one of your alien powers be the ability to fly?" But she complied, and inched out toward him. As soon as she got one foot out onto the beam, though, she froze and clenched her eyes tight, a tear escaping out of the corner of her eye. "I can't."

"Yes you can. You just need to take your mind off it—forget your fears." He paused for a moment and then said, "Rose, do you remember when we first met?"

She slowly opened her eyes, bringing her attention back to his toothy smile and untidy hair blowing in the wind. "Yeah . . . of course I do."

"Good. Keep coming toward me. What did you think of me when you first met me?"

"Are you crazy?" she shouted over the wind. But she started to inch a little farther down the spoke as she said, "I thought you were strange, and arrogant—"

"Arrogant?" he said, feigning indignation as he scooted down farther on the spoke.

"Yeah!" she said, sliding one foot down farther, and then the other, while her hands continued their death grip on the wire. "You acted all high and mighty—thought you were better than me."

"And what else?" he said, continuing his downward descent.

"I knew you were brilliant, and a little eccentric."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And mysterious. Very mysterious." She shut her eyes once again as the realization of how high they were suspended hit her once more. Trying to forget about their dangerous elevation, she said, "And I always wondered what you thought about me—really thought of me."

"Really?" he said, and she could see that he had moved a little farther down the spoke again.

Trying to keep up with him, she kept edging forward as well. "Yeah. 'Cuz you're not the sort to talk about those kinds of things, you know? I knew you were fond of me, but I never knew if you just liked me as a friend or if you felt more than that, you know?"

"Yeah, I do know," he said, sliding farther down the spoke. At this point, the wire, which sloped upward in the opposite direction as the spoke, was too high for him to reach, and he had to grab at a different wire with his other hand. Rose dreaded that spot.

"You do?" she said, genuinely surprised.

"Yeah, you know, us guys are a little daft when it comes to that sort of stuff—emotions and such. Especially time lords."

"You mean you didn't know that—that I loved you?"

She reached the point where she had to switch her hands from one wire to the other, and it was probably a good thing that the silence fell thick between them then, because she needed all her concentration to pull off the dexterous feat.

"I . . . I thought you probably did, but I didn't want to be the one to bring it up."

Rose paused for a moment to catch her breath after the harrowing transition, and then continued slowly onward toward the doctor. "I didn't either—I was afraid you'd tell me you didn't feel the same way, and then I'd feel rejected."

He shook his head, and his smile was so sweet that she hastened her descent slightly so that she could reach him faster. "No, Rose. I would never say that to you. Because I do feel—I mean, I do love you." Even though she could hardly breathe from the terror of possibly falling to her death, her insides glowed at the doctor's words. "Even more than you could ever imagine. Even more than I could imagine, I suppose . . ."

A this point, he had reached the central support beam and was clinging to the ladder, babbling so much that he didn't even notice how close she was. So when she reached him and grabbed the lapel of his jacket, his eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, shut up," she said.

He let go of the ladder with one hand to wrap his arm around her, helping her onto the same rung where he stood, and pinned himself against her to keep her safe. "We made it," he said, face to face with her now.

"Yeah . . . we did," she smiled.

He descended the ladder, and she climbed down just above him until they reached the ground. By the time she got to the bottom, she was trembling hard from the anxiety and the cold, and her knees started to buckle a bit when she got off the ladder and stepped onto the ground.

The doctor caught her and pulled her to him. "You okay?" he said, but before she could answer he said, "You're shaking," and hugged her tightly.

"Th-that's okay," she said, burying her head against his shoulder. "You can warm me up. And th-thanks, Doctor—" His hands pressed against her back, helping her feel cocooned in the safety of his embrace. "For what you said up there. It's so nice to finally hear it."

He pulled away from her, still grasping her shoulders, and said, "I was going to say it on the ride, before—"

A portly middle-aged man crashed into her, sweeping her away from the doctor and knocking her to the ground. Instead of helping her up, though, he glared down at her and said, "Hey, watch where you're going!"

The doctor stepped in front of the man and squared his shoulders. "Hey, you big galloon! You owe her an apology." Then he turned to her and said, "You alright, Rose?" and offered her a hand up.

"Yeah, I'm alright." She grabbed his hand and stood up, smiling sheepishly. "Galloon, huh? That's a good one."

"Thank you," said the doctor, slapping on his most gallant smile and tipping an imaginary hat to her. "I have no idea what it means, but . . ."

But as soon as he turned back around, the man slugged him straight in the temple, and the doctor staggered backwards a couple of feet and shook his head before recovering. "Now see here!" he said, charging toward the man. Rose watched the chaos unfold in front of her before she could contemplate how to react, as the doctor slammed his fist into the offending man, and the man tried to retaliate by wrapping his hands around the doctor's neck.

Rose thought she had never seen the doctor slug a man before now, as reluctant as he was to use violence. Just as she was thinking that it was not like him to react this way, a policeman rushed in from behind and grabbed the doctor by the collar, slapping a pair of handcuffs on the doctor's hand and wrestling it behind his back. "What is this?" said the doctor, eyes wide.

"You're under arrest for assault," said the officer. Although the doctor continued to protest, he put his other hand behind him so that the officer could finish cuffing him, and the cop began to escort him down the street.

It was little consolation to Rose that other policemen closed in to arrest the other man, the man who had started all this. She stormed along beside the cop who had ahold of the doctor. "He was just defending me!"

"Sorry, ma'am, I have orders to arrest anyone in a fight," said the officer, continuing to a nearby paddy wagon. "You can come down to the station later if you want to see him."

And with that, he hauled her doctor off to jail.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's notes: **__My stories tend to be AU, because I like to get things moving quicker than the actual show. Obviously, they have not professed their love for one another at this point._

_I found an interesting tidbit when I was watching the very first episode as "research" for this story—does anyone remember there was a Ferris Wheel in "Rose"? I was going to mention it in the last chapter, but I forgot. Oh, well—that ship has sailed.___

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 6**

Part 1.

Rose watched wistfully as the paddy wagon drove away with the doctor locked inside, and then she went to the only other person she knew in this place and time. When she found Nikola Tesla, he stood facing the light bulb exhibit that had stirred such a deep connection between her and the doctor. He addressed her without turning to face her. "The people—they've calmed down, haven't they?"

"Yeah," she said, realizing that she had not seen one fight on the way back here. "But the police arrested the doctor, and I have no money to bail him out."

Now he turned to face her. "Right before the fights broke out, a young couple was arguing fiercely. The woman stormed away, and stood watching this exhibit for a moment." He waved toward the brightly lit bulb. "Then she touched it."

Growing impatient at his distracted retelling of seemingly irrelevant events, Rose said, "Did you hear what I said about the doctor?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

Part 2.

At the jail, Rose entered a cold concrete hallway with squalid jail cells on either side. She scanned the dejected faces of the prisoners inside, but before she spotted him she heard his voice cry out, "Rose!"

His face pressed up against the bars of cell farther down, and she ran to him. Their hands reached eagerly for each other and clasped together when they met. "Rose," he said, eyes wide. "You've got to get me outta here. There's some dangerous men in here who want to hurt me."

"Really?" she said, glancing behind him at several truck-like shady-looking characters.

"Nah, just kidding." A smile climbed onto his lips. "Hank here was just complimenting me on my interesting story about the ghost-men of the Stratos Nebula."

A 300-lb. brick of a man looked up at her from the hard bench where he was sitting and waved. Rose smiled back at the doctor. "You had me. But I have a surprise for you too."

At that moment, Tesla took his cue and stepped into the doctor's line of view. "Nikola!"

"Doctor," Tesla grinned. "I couldn't just let you rot in here."

The doctor waved away the seriousness of the situation with his hand and said, "Ah, I've been in worse prisons before."

"Still, I've got money to get you out of here," said Tesla as he signaled the guard to come open the cell door.

As the doctor stepped out of the cell, he turned back to Hank and said, "Well, so long. Good luck with that wart tonic . . . thing."

The stout man waved and said gruffly, "Thanks, Doctor. Come find me if you ever need anyone roughed up."

"Will do." As they walked away, the doctor muttered under his breath, "Or not."

As they exited the prison, Tesla and the doctor got busy discussing the odd events of the evening. Then Tesla said, "In all the excitement, I almost forgot—I have that light bulb ready for the Tardis."

"Great! But I need you to make a couple of changes to it before we have to go."

Part 3.

Once they were safely in the Tardis and on their way to ancient Egypt, the doctor began to try on clothes. After what seemed like an eternity to Rose, he came out of the dressing room wearing a white wrap around his waist, belted at the top with a lavish jeweled sash. On his head he wore a simple striped cloth, and Rose noticed that his hair was two shades darker than it had been.

She began to giggle uncontrollably. "What?" he said, narrowing his eyes with indignation.

"You're wearing a skirt!" she chortled.

"It's called a Shendyt," he said, without even breaking into a smile.

"And your hair!" she said, pointing.

He brushed his hand toward her in disgust. "Ah, you just wait until you see what _you're _wearing."

"Not that," she said, but she knew she would have to dress like the natives in order to avoid suspicion. "And I am _not _dying my hair."

"Rose Tyler, you are going to get us into loads of trouble with that yellow hair of yours," he said, striding toward her now, and she wondered for a second if he was genuinely angry. She steeled herself as he came right up to her, and then he began to brush past her.

She hooked her arm around his elbow and caught him, bringing him to a stop. He turned his head toward her, his eyes gleaming, and she could see that he was not mad at all. Instead, his eyes contained cloudy dreams of what might become between them. "Can I have a moment with you?" she said softly.

"Absolutely," he said slowly, and turned his body to face hers.

She rested her arms against his chest, and he pressed his hands onto her back and pulled her to him. "I-I just wanted to say it one more time, I was a little distracted last time. Doctor . . . I—" She gulped, and the corners of his mouth rose in anticipation. "I love you."

She could see all his teeth now, and his head tilted to the side in the cutest way. "Rose Tyler—" Now it was his turn to swallow hard, and she laughed silently at his nervousness. "I love you."

She began to move in for a kiss, but he pulled away suddenly. "Wait right there," he said, heading toward the Tardis console.

"What?" she said, her shoulders tensing. "Can't it wait?"

"No, it really can't," he said as he reached the console and began to fiddle with a small box.

"Mood killer," she said, crossing her arms and giving him a pouty look. Perhaps the box contained a ring . . . _but no, he wouldn't have had time, would he? _she thought.

Out of the box he pulled a light bulb—the same one Tesla had made for the Tardis. He whipped around to face her, saying, "Here, hold this."

"Have you gone mad?" she said, holding out her hand nonetheless. She thought maybe he wanted to replicate the feeling from the light bulb in the exhibition hall, but when she held the bulb in her hand, she felt nothing. "Why is this so important right now, Doctor?"

"If I explain that, it won't be good anymore," he said, adjusting the light bulb in her hand. "Now where were we?"

She stayed silent for a moment, hoping he would notice the scowl on her face. "_We _were about to have our first lover's quarrel, that's what."

"Are you serious? I love that!" he said, chuckling.

"I'm not kidding, Doctor." Heat began to pool in her cheeks. "Why do you have to spoil every good moment between us?"

The doctor looked lost, and he opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again when he couldn't come up with the right words.

The Tardis landed with a thud, and after a space long enough for the tension between them to build like a slingshot, he said gently, "We're here—I guess you'd better get ready."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's notes: **_

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 7**

Rose emerged from the dressing room in a long dress that hung straight to the floor, with two thin straps and a jagged stripe pattern across it. Pieces of her blonde hair hung out from under the long, black wig she wore, two strands of it hanging down low on her chest in twists. The doctor smiled. "Lovely," he said, examining her from head to sandaled toe. "Ready?"

"Yeah," she said, brushing past him to the Tardis door.

They stepped out into a dusty world filled with nothing but gargantuan stone blocks as far as the eye could see. "The Great Pyramid of Giza," said the doctor as they took in the entire scene. A layer of rectangular stone slabs stretched out more than two-hundred meters wide. "Twenty-five sixty-three B.C., built under the dynasty of Pharaoh Khufu. Quite an undertaking."

"Looks like they've just started building," said Rose, who had been expecting a towering pyramid structure already.

"Yeah. They just now have the base constructed. C'mon."

She followed behind, but said, "Where are we going, Doctor?"

"Dunno yet. I'll know when we get there."

As they got closer to the base of the pyramid, Rose's anger toward the doctor began to subside, and she realized that maybe she had over-reacted when the doctor had interrupted their time together for a light bulb. She did get tired of never being the main object of his attention, though. She would be delighted if she ever found herself at the center of his world ceaselessly for more than a few minutes at a time. He was a man of constant adventure, and her heart suffered for it.

But she had known that when she became a part of his world.

"Look at that," the Doctor said, as they came across Egyptian workers chipping away at stones, and Rose could now see that the base layer was about as tall as a house.

"Yeah, it's workers. So what?"

"They have shackles on their feet," he commented, his gaze puzzled.

"So?" said Rose, baffled by his confusion. "I thought the pyramids were built by slaves."

"No," he said, turning toward her, and she could tell she was about to get schooled. "That's what most people think. But they were actually built by paid workers, who temporarily moved here for the work. They had homes, and possessions—and families."

"They could have had a few slaves," said Rose, unconvinced.

"But look around," the doctor said, moving past rows of workers. "Everyone is a slave. That's not how it was. Something isn't right."

At the same time the doctor uttered the words, two men came around the corner of a stone block, and Rose recoiled at the sight of them. The pair stood at least a head taller than the doctor, with muscular bare chests and dark heads that looked like sharp-snouted dogs, and ears that stuck up tall and reminded Rose of bats. Their pointy eyes revealed no emotion, but they both stood still and stared at the doctor and Rose.

"Doctor," Rose said, breathing heavily.

"It's okay, just let me talk to them. Stay behind me." He stepped in front of her protectively, and then squared up to face them, his bare chest puffed out. Rose noticed for the first time how sexy he was shirtless.

A deep voice emanated low from within one of the dog men, saying, "What are you doing here, travelers, and who gave you permission to enter the queen's property?"

"Queen Meritites?" asked the doctor, looking bewildered.

"No. Queen Bastet."

"Bastet?" said the doctor, before mumbling to Rose, "She was a goddess. A fictional diety."

"Incorrect," said the dog-man. "She rules this land, and you are trespassing on royal property."

But the doctor ignored him, saying, "I recognize you too. You're the Anubis, known to the Egyptians as jackal-headed gods. And I knew that myth was based on visitors from another galaxy, but the Anubis are an obedient species, incapable of rendering harm to anyone without orders from someone else." He turned to Rose again. "Kind of like the Ood."

"Oh, no," she rolled her eyes. "Not that lot again."

"But once they arrived here, they realized the people here were not advanced enough to command them, and they left. At least that's how it happened before someone interfered with history. These aren't their real faces," he added. "They wear masks, so as not to scare the primitive species too horribly."

"You must leave," said one of the Anubis, pulling a rather frightening whip from his belt. He flipped a switch with his thumb, and the weapon lit up with blue electricity.

"Doctor, I think maybe we should go," said Rose.

"No, we're not going anywhere. We _are _trespassing, and we surrender to the will of the queen. Take us to your leader!" He glanced back at Rose and grinned, saying, "I've always wanted to say that."

The Anubis stepped toward the doctor, cracking the whip into the air as he did. "Very well. Come along, prisoner."

The doctor looked back at her with a look of concern, but she grabbed his hand and they followed one Anubis as the other closed in behind them. "Doctor," she said as they got closer to the edge of the pyramid. "I'm sorry about before. I shouldn't have gotten cross with you."

He pulled her closer to his side and said, "It's nothing. Maybe I have a thing or two to learn about navigating the delicate balance of human emotions. I'm sorry I'm not more sensitive to your needs."

She leaned her head into his shoulder for a moment, but then raised it again as they came to a giant, dark entryway into the heart of the pyramid. At this point, the entire base of the structure only rose a few meters above their heads, but the entrance was carved into the ground and appeared to descend steeply underneath the surface. She stared in awe at the gaping hole before them.

They stepped into a well-lit sloping stone tunnel, and followed the Anubis straight into the core of the structure until they reached a spacious room at the bottom that seemed out of place, like it belonged to another world than this one. While the walls and floor were still made from stone, with hieroglyphics etched into them, there were strange flashing gadgets and bright colored lighting that Rose would have expected to find on a space ship more than here.

In the center of the room stood a waist-high lily carved out of stone, with a bright blue light shining up from the middle, and a giant sparkling ball suspended over it with spiral cords connecting the two. Rose thought it looked like a sort of console. "From what village do you come?" said a female voice, calm yet commanding. "The way you are dressed suggests you are hardly peasants, which means you must be delegates from elsewhere."

Rose and the doctor turned to face the woman, who was dressed in an elaborate Egyptian dress with abundant jewels and gold trim. The woman was impossibly thin, and her face obviously not human. Her eyes shaped like almonds and huge, she spoke from fine lips that barely made a line on her face. Her hair was the only part of her that looked human, straight and long and black like a typical Egyptian's, but Rose knew it might be a wig.

The Anubis who had escorted them into the pyramid got on their knees to bow, and then one of them stood behind Rose and the doctor to force them to do the same. The doctor glared at him, but complied stiffly and lowered to one knee. Rose followed suit and kneeled as well. The doctor spoke coarsely. "Yes, we are delegates, here on official business, to find out what you have done with the Pharaoh."

"You dare to address your queen in such a manner?" she said, her voice rising. "You are lucky I don't have you beheaded straight away." She paused, and said, "I assume you are referring to the prisoner Khufu?"

"Yes," said the doctor, rising to his feet. "You have no right to dethrone him. And if the people knew who you really were—"

"Silence, traitor!" she said, her eyes wide and fiery, slamming her staff to the floor. "Or I will silence you."

The doctor clenched his jaw hard. "You may be able to order the Anubis around, but you have no authority over a time lord."

"Time lord?" said Queen Bastet, her eyes revealing her surprise.

"That's right. I know you're from the Sirius star cluster, and I also know that you are in violation of the Shadow Proclamation by enslaving the Earthlings."

The queen smirked. "Then you probably also realize that this pyramid will contain a source of great power, and that I will be able to project that power throughout the land by using the structure as a transmitter, putting me in control of the entire population."

"You bet I am," said the doctor, steeling himself. "And I command you to leave this planet and never return."

After a few seconds of silence, the queen laughed. "Oh, if only I could," she said. She waved callously at him. "As a time lord, you would serve me well in the quarry. With your knowledge, you will make a good mason. And the girl with the pale skin and black and white hair can be a house slave. Take them away."

One of the Anubis began to move toward Rose, raising his whip, and Rose cringed. The doctor stood in the way of the dog-headed man and raised his hand, saying, "No!"

The sound of the whip cracking landed close to Rose's ear, and she flinched. But when she opened her eyes, the doctor was on the floor, grasping at his side, sucking air in through his teeth. Then she saw blood dripping between his fingers, and she dropped to her knees at his side. "Doctor!" Then she looked up at the Anubis and said, "Back off! Back off and leave him alone or I'll—"

"Rose," he hissed. "Don't. I'll be fine—just go with them."

She had no control over the tears moistening her face now. "But I can't leave you."

"Just go, Rose. It'll be okay." He managed to plaster on a weak smile. "You have to trust me."

She touched his cheek, and his fingers brushed her chin in return. "Doctor, I—I'll see you soon," she said between tears.

"I know you will, Rose," he said bravely.

Reluctantly, she rose to her feet and cast one last glance at her love before allowing the guards to take her away from him.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's notes: **__This story is kind of based on how I feel at my current job. Raise your hand if you can relate._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 8**

The day she witnessed the doctor writhing on the floor after suffering under the whip of the Anubis was the last time she saw him before her escape. Her captors led her up the same corridor she had descended, and then through another chamber to a central room on the ground floor and deep within the core of the pyramid. This was obviously where the queen lived, as it was lined with decorative gold trim and elaborate drawings, a lacy poster bed its central piece, but the beauty of the place was lost in her numbness.

"Take off your clothes and put these on," said a woman with high cheekbones and short, black hair, obviously a native Egyptian. Rose cast a glance at one of the Anubis, who raised the handle of his whip, and she reluctantly went behind the changing curtain and complied, removing her wig as well.

Over the next few hours, other slaves showed her how to perform her duties—washing and pressing clothes properly so they would show no wrinkles, sweeping the floor, dusting off and polishing precious trinkets made of marble and various metals, drawing water for a bath. Even though the "control room" of the pyramid contained technology more advanced than anything that existed during her time, the structure lacked basic plumbing, forcing Rose and other slaves to carry heavy buckets of water on their heads from a distance outside. She supposed the queen had no reason to install plumbing when she had perfectly good laborers to do the work for her.

When the queen retired to her chambers for the evening, Rose's day got exponentially worse. "Why isn't my bath hotter?" crowed the sadistic woman. She turned directly to Rose, and then studied her as if she was seeing her for the first time. "Slave, what happened to your hair? It is so . . . pale." Then she stiffened and said, "Anyhow, remove some of this water and heat it up."

Rose suppressed a sigh and did as the woman commanded, removing one bucketful, carrying it on her head to a stove in the kitchen and pouring it into a pot over an open flame. When it was boiling, she nearly burned her hands pouring it back into the bucket, and then carefully hoisted it back onto her head and hauled it back to the bathtub.

The queen sighed. "This is taking forever. Move quicker, slave, or you will get the lash."

Rose shuffled quickly away with another bucket, restraining herself from muttering curses under her breath. This time, because she was hurrying, she sloshed some onto her arm, and flinched from the pain. But she kept moving through it, because she knew that the burn from the hot water would be nothing compared to the whip.

She did this three times, hauling buckets back and forth, and the queen settled into the bath, ordering Rose to wash her back and then admonishing her whenever she didn't do it "right." Rose wanted to throttle the woman, but she valued her life, and she didn't want to put the doctor in jeopardy either.

Rose looked for any chance to escape whenever she could, but she was heavily guarded at all times, day and night. She continued on in this fashion for the next three days, heeding the queen's every beck and call whenever the atrocious woman was present, and laboring ceaselessly, save for a few hours of sleep when she could work no more. And all the while she worried about the doctor—how hard must they be working him, and with injuries nonetheless?

On the third night of her captivity, she dropped into a deep sleep on a cold, hard patch on the ground, an Anubis standing over her. She awoke within a couple of hours, and after the initial disorientation of arousal, saw a welcome sight. The Anubis guarding her was slumped against the wall, still seated on a bench, but his head was tilted to the side and he did not move. She had a strong hunch that he was asleep, although the eyes of his mask would not give away the secret.

She sat up, and he did not move. She got on her hands and knees, and he stayed motionless. Finally, she got up the courage to crawl quietly toward the door, and he sat like a statue. Once she got past the queen's bed without detection, she hastened her pace and scuttled out the door.

She blinked, glancing around one last time, and then ran.

Holding her breath until she made it out of the corridor and into the open air, she welcomed the cool night wind onto her face, for it was the whisper of freedom. But her first thought after her escape was of the doctor, and she did not know where to begin to look for him. Remembering the slaves working in the quarry, she headed in that direction, knowing that the queen had sentenced him to work there.

But it seemed like the piles of rocks were endless, and she had no idea where the slaves were kept at night. She searched for what seemed like hours, with no luck. And then she rounded a corner and almost collided with two Anubis.

In a flash, she was off, sprinting in the opposite direction. The two dog-men, lean and tall, stayed hot on her trail, one of them coming within inches of her with his whip. But she managed to dart around several stone obstacles, slowing them down a bit, and she knew she had an advantage without the heavy masks they bore.

She wound through the quarry in the direction of the Tardis, where she knew she would be safe. Once she saw it, camouflaged midnight in the light of moon, she felt a twinge of hope, and she caught an extra bit of bounce in her step. Without looking back to see how close the men were behind her, she reached the door, fished out the key, and slid the lock open with a heartening click. She heard the footfalls directly behind her as she opened the door, and slammed it shut as the men came within steps of the craft. She slid the lock securely closed and breathed for the first time since the chase began.

Leaning against the door, she shut her eyes and waited for her heartbeat to slow so she could think of how to save the doctor. But before she could get too relaxed, she startled as a rapid succession of thumps slammed into the Tardis. "What the hell?" she said, but she knew better than to open the Tardis door and see what was going on.

The banging grew louder, from what sounded like knocking until it was like someone was trying to hack the entire thing to pieces. The Tardis was protected by a shield—she knew this. The doctor had said that it was almost impossible for anyone to penetrate it. Almost.

But what if these aliens had some sort of special technology that could eventually make it through? Or what if the doctor had forgotten to put up the shield? It was clear to Rose that these people weren't going to give up easily, and as the pounding grew louder and began to rattle the entire Tardis, she had to make a decision.

She couldn't allow them to destroy her only defense, and their only means of escaping. The doctor was still out there, and it went against every impulse in her body to leave him. But then she remembered—she could go and come right back, possibly guiding the Tardis even closer to him.

"I'm sorry Doctor," she said, squinting as she pushed a lever that she knew would cause the Tardis to take off. The familiar whooshing sound made her feel relieved and guilty all at the same time, and she said, "I'll be right back for you, I promise."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's notes: **__Here's an early weekend present. I probably won't be able to write tomorrow, so I thought I'd give you all a bonus cliffhanger to tide you over until later._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 9**

When Rose set out in the Tardis, she was gone for a matter of minutes. So, when she set foot outside after fiddling clumsily with the controls and nearly crashing to the ground, she could hardly believe her eyes when she witnessed the spectacle just outside the Tardis. The Great Pyramid rose to the sky in all its glory—and not the crumbling, collapsing version she had seen in pictures either. This version stood in all its magnificence, polished and smooth and perfectly symmetrical.

The sight brought her thoughts instantly to the doctor. How long did it take to build a pyramid? Too long, she would soon find out.

Even so, she had a hard time wrapping around the image of the doctor that she stumbled upon soon thereafter—fragile, pale, emaciated. The queen and her servants had forced him to labor away with hammer and chisel almost to his death, and he appeared a shell of his former self. After she had rescued him from the Anubis and settled him into his bed in the Tardis, she fretted that maybe they had—after all, he seemed to be barely clinging to life. If she had arrived any later, she might have found a different man altogether, or no man at all, if they had managed to finish him off before he could regenerate.

As she lay next to him now, her body nestled against his, she listened to the sound of his one working heart, praying for every beat to lead to the next one. Then, from his raspy throat arose one word, "Rose." She lifted herself up and leaned over him, looking down on his face, drawn with exhaustion.

She stroked his cheek now, knowing she would do anything in her power to make up for the time she had left him alone. "I'm here."

He coughed. "I'm so glad you came. I thought I was going to have to move some boulders to find you. Oh wait—I did."

He laughed, and then sputtered again. Rose smiled down at him, trying not to cry. "Doctor, I'm so sorry—I had to leave. I thought the Anubis were going to break down the Tardis the way they were going at it. I thought it would only be a matter of minutes before I got back."

He lifted his hand, resting it against her arm so he could caress her arm. "That's the way she works, you know. You never can tell exactly where or when she's going to land."

Rose's lip trembled as she said, "I know."

"No worries, love," he said feebly. "You're here now, that's all that matters."

"Doctor," she said, her voice cracking. "Please tell me you didn't spend that entire time working. Surely you were able to escape during some of it."

His eyes narrowed in fatigue. "I tried. I got away, but I came looking for you."

She shook her head as she wiped away tears. "But you couldn't, because I was gone. And the Tardis too."

He reached up and swept away a tear from her face with his thumb. "Please don't cry, Rose. I—" He began to wheeze, and Rose jumped up into a sitting position.

"Doctor, is there anything I can do to help you? Tea?" she said, remembering how it had revived him once before.

His words came between rasping breaths. "Bring me . . . the light bulb."

"The light bulb?" she said, narrowing her eyes. "You mean the one Tesla made for the Tardis?"

His breathing came with such difficulty that he couldn't talk, but he nodded his confirmation.

"I'll be right back," she said, and dashed into the other room to the console to retrieve the item. When she came back, he looked even weaker, his skin pale, and a puff of orange wafted from his mouth.

"Oh, no, Doctor—please don't," she said, returning to his side and showing him the light bulb. "Here it is."

He grabbed the object from her hand and gripped the base of it firmly in his fingers. She watched his face expectantly, but instead of improving, an orange glow began to envelop his face. "Doctor please—" she pleaded as he shut his eyes.

She picked up one of his hands and began to tremble as it turned a bright orange hue as well. "Doctor, no! Don't leave me now."

He opened his eyes, and her tears dropped down onto his face, sizzling as soon as they hit his cheek. "Rose, back away," he commanded, but she had no intention of leaving him now.

She knew the regeneration energy could kill her. Rationally, she knew she should give him his space. But no amount of logic could guide her heart at this moment. She had left his side for only a moment before, and look what that had done to him.

Besides that, if he regenerated, he would no longer be the same doctor. He could be anyone, and she might not be able to fall back in love with him as easily as she had before. The end of the doctor she knew could be the end of their love, and she didn't know if she could bear that.

"Rose, what are you doing?" he gasped. "Back away. You'll be killed!"

Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her lips hard against his in a solid kiss. He sputtered and tried to turn his head, but she grasped his cheeks with her fingers and forced his head towards her, locking her lips against his once more. He tried to push her away, but he was too weak to wrestle her off him.

At first, it tingled. Then it began to burn, spreading into her cheeks and her forehead until she thought her head might explode. And then the burning stopped, and she felt nothing at all.

In fact, there was no more movement at all. The doctor had stopped squirming, and his chest no longer rose and fell. She pulled away and stared for a moment at his ashen face. "Doctor?" she said with nervous anticipation. Her gut tightened as she waited for him to move, and her heart fell into her stomach when he didn't. "Doctor?" she said, shaking him hard, but his head flopped to one side like a rag doll, his mouth parting slightly, as if awaiting a kiss to bring him back to life.

When she leaned forward to listen for breathing signs that didn't exist, she knew that her kiss had done the opposite—he had withheld his regeneration energy, restraining it deep within his own body so that it wouldn't kill her. In the process, he had caused his own death, and this time he would not recover.

When she realized what he had done, she began to weep uncontrollably, her cries growing louder and louder as she said, "No no no no NO NO NO!" She shook him hard now, hoping the motions would miraculously cause him to shudder back to life. When that failed, she searched through bleary eyes for the light bulb, which had fallen from his lifeless hand, and clasped his fingers around it once more. When he still did not revive, she resorted to CPR, pressing down hard and quick on one side of his chest, and then the other, until she stopped, exhausted.

Her attempts to revive him fruitless, she sat numbly over his motionless body. "Oh, God, no. Doctor, come back," she whimpered, and then she slumped onto his chest, which lay suspended as if frozen in a moment of time. Her tears rolled off his torso and disappeared, removing with them any hopes that her prayers would be answered.

All thoughts detached from her mind, save one. The doctor was gone. Her love had vanished for good, and she had caused his death.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Author's notes: **__Sorry it's taken me so long to update—I wanted the next couple of chapters to be juuuuust right._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 10**

Thoughts escaped her as Rose stared down at the doctor's colorless hand, nestled lovingly in her own. She traced the lines of a tear that had fallen on his thumb, and then raised his hand so that she could kiss it one last time. "I'm so sorry, Doctor," she sobbed.

The time she spent sitting on the edge of the bed might have been a thousand years, or a few minutes. Numbness settled in deep through her body, half her heart cold and empty, its desire erased from the universe. She couldn't even begin to think of a future, or make plans, even the most pressing, like what to do with the shell of his body.

The kernel of a thought began drown out her grief and nag at her until it grew into an obsession, and her muscles tensed. Anger paired with the obsession filled the space in her chest where the doctor's love used to live, and her mind became a gale of mixed fury and thoughts of revenge. Queen Bastet had done this to him.

Rose had left him behind, and that was a mistake she would bear the cross of forever. The Anubis had beaten him and forced him to work, but only on the queen's orders. It was she who had enslaved him, who had commanded that he work until he could stand no more. The cursed wonder of the pyramid that stood right outside the Tardis was built on his back, along with the lives of countless other Egyptian slaves, and the evil woman should pay. Yes, she should pay for the pain she inflicted on her beloved doctor, for the love she had destroyed.

Rose stood up, determined to do something to avenge the doctor. She leaned over him, kissing his forehead and stroking his hair one more time before covering his face with a blanket. "I'm sorry, Doctor," she said again. "I'm should have known you'd give your life to save mine. I can't make it up to you, but I can try and make it even."

She paced, fuming for a few more minutes as she plotted her next moves, and then she picked up a bucket and the sash that had been tied around the doctor's waist and headed out the door.

Getting to the queen wasn't going to be easy, but she had an idea. Outside the pyramid was a well where she had drawn up water for the queen. She filled the bucket with water and placed it on her head, carefully carrying it to the entrance of the pyramid, still wearing her plain white tunic. She walked right past the guards at the front, who must have assumed that she was just another house slave, despite her blonde hair.

She made it all the way down the central chamber underground before calling out to an Anubis guard, "Hey, you."

The urge to hurt him simmered strong within her, but she refrained long enough to wait for his reaction. "Slave, get back to work," he said, holding out the handle to his whip as a threat.

Warm with satisfaction, she smiled that he had taken the bait. "What are you going to do about it if I don't?" she said, sass in her tone.

The guard pushed a button on his whip handle, and the electronic whip snapped out to its full length. "This is for the doctor," she said, grabbing the bucket of water with both hands and splashing its contents onto the whip and the guard generously.

With a sizzle, the whip shorted out, the electricity travelling like a flash to the dog-man's hand and throughout his body. He convulsed for several seconds, and then fell to his knees.

Rose had expected to experience some guilt over taking a life, and possibly a bit of sadness. But her heart had turned as cold as the doctor's skin, and she would have spat on this being lying on the ground if she had not cared about wasting a few precious seconds. Her callousness shocked her, but she didn't have time to contemplate it. She had more work to do.

Once the whip stopped sparking, she picked it up cautiously, and marveled at how the weight of it in her hand brought her such gratification. She pushed a button on it, and it lit up again with renewed sizzle. With the weapon empowering her, she moved freely into the control room, where two more Anubis and the queen surrounded the console, looking up just as they realized that something out of the ordinary was happening.

Before the guards had time to react, Rose flicked the whip at first one, and then the other, and both lay dead on the ground. Without even flinching at the lives she had just taken, she turned to the queen, whose eyes shot wide open with surprise. But the heartless woman maintained her composure, saying, "The white-haired slave."

The queen had not aged much, and Rose became furious that this dictator had lived in luxury while the doctor had wasted away, enchained under her tyrannical command. "On your knees, you filthy wench," Rose said, snapping the whip on the floor for emphasis.

The woman glared at her, but did as she commanded, getting down on one knee, and then the other. "I have Anubis all over this pyramid," she said. "You'll never get away, and it's too late anyway."

"I don't care about getting away," said Rose, her jaw hardened. "Just getting even. In fact—" She circled the queen, and once she stood directly behind the woman, she dropped the whip and pulled out the sash. "I want it to be a slow, personal death."

As she said the words, she wrapped the ends of the sash around both of her hands and strung it around the queen's neck, yanking it tight once it encircled her thin, pasty throat. The queen began to gurgle, and there was a rewarding squishy feel as Rose pulled the sash tighter. Through clamped shut teeth, Rose said, "This isn't a fraction of the suffering you caused the doctor."

The gurgling stopped, and the queen's head began to bob as she started to lose consciousness. But Rose lowered herself to her knees and pulled even tighter, saying through fresh tears, "You stole the life from my love, and for that you have to pay."

"Except—" said a familiar voice. "That I'm still alive."

"Doctor?" Rose said, looking up while the queen slumped to the floor.

In contrast to the half-naked, scrawny doctor she had left in the Tardis, he was back to the doctor she knew—clean-shaven and back in his overcoat and pin-stripe suit, hair spikey and wild. He took a step toward her in his blue Converse sneakers. "In the flesh."

"Oh my God, Doctor. You're alive!" As she exhaled the words, she had the urge to drop everything and run toward him, enveloping him in a big bear hug. But a stronger impulse gripped her like a vice, and she found that she could not let go of the sash, and instead tightened it again, almost unaware of her own actions until she felt it sink into the queen's jelly-like neck. It would be easy—so easy, to finish her off.

The doctor must have noticed her obsession as well, because he took another step toward her and held out one hand in a stop sign. "Rose, let her go."

She looked at him, beseeching him with her eyes, and shook her head. "I can't." She clenched her teeth. "I hate her . . . and what she did to you, Doctor. We can't let her get away with what she did."

"I know why you're so angry," he said, sinking his hands into the pockets of his coat. "And I know why she's so bitter. She's had a rough go of it."

"I don't care!" Rose pulled the sash taut, hoping to cut off the last bit of life-saving air. "She's a horrible person."

"Rose, just let go so we can talk. Please." Unable to defy the doctor, she loosened up the sash, but she did not remove it from the queen's neck. The doctor knelt on one knee next to them, speaking softer now. "Queen Bastet's people are from the planet Dogon in the Sirius Star Cluster. Well . . . half her people, anyway." He looked down at the queen's thin, fragile frame with empathy. "You see, she's a hybrid. The Dogons don't look as human as her. In fact, your people are terrified of them—remember the grays?"

Rose peered at him out of the corner of her eye, ashamed of her actions and unable to look him in the eye. Instead, she stared at the queen, noticing for the first time how her features resembled the big-headed aliens with slanted eyes that she had seen in pictures. "You mean, the Area Fifty-One kind?"

"You betcha. They're real. They came here long ago—well," he said, his head bobbing back and forth, "right about thirty years ago. But she's only half-Dogon. The other half of her is human. She probably never even set foot on Dogon. But her people gave the humans some of their technology and left, realizing that the humans weren't advanced enough for their purposes yet." His voice got quiet. "But they left her behind. She's the last of her kind—the only one of her kind, really. Their abandonment of her must have devastated her."

Rose squinted her eyes as tears began to fall from them. "But Doctor, even knowing that, I still hate her." She shook her head. "Right now, I don't think I can stop myself from killing her even if I tried."

Lifting a finger to her chin to raise her face so that their eyes could meet, he said, "I know. And it's not your fault. But I found the secret door, and this is it." He reached into his pocket and withdrew the Tardis light bulb that she had left in his dead hand.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Author's notes: **__Whew. If you're not sweating by the end, you will be in the next chapter or two. _

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 11**

Rose looked at the innocuous light bulb in the doctor's hand. "This is the key to unlocking the secret door, Rose," he said, reaching down to touch her hand. When his fingers made contact with her skin, shudders travelled down her spine, and she closed her eyes.

But a stronger urge, one to bring pain and death to the queen, kept her hands glued to the sash around the alien queen's neck. A tear rolled from the corner of Rose's eye. "I . . . can't."

"But I can change that," said the doctor, standing as he turned toward the console, light bulb held out in front of him. When he reached the controls, he examined the lights and gadgets laid out before him, and stared at a large, bright green bulb directly in front of him. "Oh, you are beautiful," he said with a smile.

"What is the secret door?" Rose said, trying to keep her attention fixed on him instead of her hatred.

"Well, it's really a place, rather than a thing," he said, running the sonic screwdriver over the console as he talked. "Specifically, a place inside your brain."

"My brain?" she said, more confused than ever.

Now he began pushing buttons on the console. "Yeah, it's inside your pineal gland. And everyone else's. And mine. And it regulates our moods." He looked up at her, taking a break from the feverish momentum of his hands. "I just love saying pineal, don't you? Say it—pineal."

"Pineal," she said, but only for his satisfaction.

"Anyway, the body is a wonderful thing. It functions based on vibrating frequencies of various sorts—"

"Doctor, keep it simple, please."

His hands began moving on the console again. "Right. Queen Bastet, whose life is precariously balanced in your hands now—" Rose looked down at her hands, still clutching the sash that encircled the queen's neck. "—has invented this marvelous light source—" He nodded at the large green light bulb that glowed prominently on the console. "—which creates oscillating resonant frequencies that can open up the pineal gland to a different frequency to the one in which it—"

"English, Doctor."

"Basically, it changes your mood, by opening up a door of sorts to your brain. And it's very tricky to do. By the looks of things, I'd say the frequency she used in this bulb resonates with the emotion of anger. Very clever."

Rose's jaw dropped. "You mean—?"

"Yes, Rose Tyler." His look softened. "This rage you're experiencing isn't all from you. It's from this one light bulb here, and I can get rid of it with one twist of my wrist." With that, he unscrewed the bulb and said with flare, "How many time lords does it take to unscrew a light bulb? Just one—the last one."

As soon as he completed the action, Rose's hands dropped the sash and flew up to her mouth. She stared down at the unconscious queen, standing and backing away from the woman in horror at what she had done. "Doctor," she said between her fingers. "Is she—"

"No, she's not. See her chest rising and falling?"

Now Rose glanced around the room at the other two Anubis guards. "But they _are_. I killed them, Doctor," she said, crying.

"I know," said the doctor softly. "But you weren't in control of your emotions."

Her eyes met the doctor's. "But how did it control me all the way to the Tardis?"

"The pyramid. Think of it as a giant transmitter. She built it so she could project rage throughout the known world. It's easier to control the masses when they are divided by anger. It's also easier to convince people to make war when there's so much hatred. But I can reverse it." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Tardis light bulb. "With this."

As he screwed it into the console, a tingle ran through Rose's forehead and spread down her spine and all the way down to her hands and feet. She looked at the doctor, her doctor, and he was alive. More than alive—brilliant, really, the way the golden Tardis bulb lit him up, and he illuminated the entire room so bright that she had to shield her eyes. He looked at her with complete reverence, his eyes shining at her as if she was the queen of England. "Doctor," she said, barely getting the word out before her feet carried her to him like a moth drawn to the flame.

As she approached him, her body warmed, but not in a painful way like the regeneration energy had burned her. Instead, the light radiating from the bulb reflected off him and melted her insides, making her heart full and spongy and fluttery. She stopped an arms-length away from him, holding out her hand to touch his chest, and he beamed. "It's really is you, right? Not some other, regenerated doctor?"

He tilted his chin up. "Just good 'ole me." Then he rested his hand on hers.

She thought she saw a tear glistening in the corner of his eye, and it made her eyes start to water as well. "I thought I'd lost you."

He nodded vigorously. "Oh, I was gone alright. But your love saved me, Rose Tyler."

"But how-?"

His eyes shined. "Remember the light bulb that made us all mushy on the inside at the World's Fair?" She nodded, and he continued. "It used the same kind of technology as Queen Bastet's bulb. But instead of sending out a frequency of hate and anger, it radiated love."

"Yeah?" she said, her voice cracking as she examined his vibrant face for any signs that he was still struggling with his own mortality, but there were none. "But what's that got to do with the light from the Tardis?"

"I had Tesla make some adjustments to the one he made for the Tardis, and together we designed it with the same technology." He touched her cheek. "All it was waiting for was to be charged with your love for me."

He wiped away a tear from her face with her thumb. Studying his glimmering eyes, she said, "You mean—?" He nodded. "So when you wanted me to hold the bulb in the Tardis, you just wanted me to activate it."

"That's right."

"But I didn't do it," she said, remembering with shame now how she had become cross with him when he tried to give it to her.

"But you brought it to me right before I died," he said, his face shimmering in the bright auburn light. "And the love you showed when you took care of me grounded right into the bulb. It took a while for it to fully charge, but after you left, it gave both my hearts just the boost that I needed to revive."

Mutual understanding passed between them through their wordless gaze, and Rose's lower lip began to quiver as she leaned in closer to him. "And that's the same love we're feeling at this very moment," she said tenderly.

"And at the World's Fair, because it's all the same bulb. It's all from you, Rose." They were nose to nose now, and she closed her lips in anticipation as his whispered words brushed warm against her lips. "All the love we felt, then and now—it's all real."

The flesh from his lips pressed lightly against hers, and the intensity of skin on skin made her shiver. Their mouths parted as one, their lips dancing with one another in pleasure. His hands caressed her back as she moved her body into his, closing the distance between them. He pulled his mouth away from hers long enough to whisper against her cheek, "My hearts are all wibbly-wobbly, flittery-fluttery inside." She ran her hands from the base of his spine up to the nape of his neck, and he gasped in delight, and brought his lips to hers once again.

Their kiss deepened, their mouths merging as she ruffled his hair with hands trembling from excitement. Bodies pressed together, arms encircling each other like blankets, she stopped long enough to emit a breathy sentiment, saying, "Doctor, I want to stay like this forever," before the golden light that enshrined him swallowed her up like the sun.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Author's notes: **__Okay, just hang on. With many of my stories I turn up the flames before this point, but I feel like there is an innocence about the Rose/Doctor relationship that needs to develop slowly, otherwise it's just "Who porn." Besides, it's more fun to let the tension build._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 12**

As Rose basked in the light of the doctor's embrace, she leaned into him, but then she felt a shift in his weight and she pulled away. His eyes still closed in eagerness, he whispered, "Rose," and then began to swoon as he took a step back. Rose lunged to catch him, but he steadied himself first.

"You okay, Doctor?" she said, gingerly placing a hand on his back for support.

He put his hand to his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm still a bit weak is all. Your light bulb—the Rose bulb—" His face lit up. "I quite like that! The Rose bulb gave me enough of a charge to bring me back to life, but it didn't heal me completely."

She narrowed her eyes in worry. "Oh, Doctor—I'm sorry! I didn't realize—I hope I didn't hurt you."

"No, no, it's okay. I'll be alright. I just need to rest, and have some tea." Rose nodded, remembering how her mother's tea had revived him once before. "But we have one more thing to take care of before—"

A moan drifted up from where Queen Bastet lay on the floor. "Doctor," said Rose, leaving his side so she could attend to the woman. "I forgot about the queen." Rose kneeled beside the woman, who opened her eyes and blinked back surprise when she saw Rose's face. Looking up at the doctor, Rose said, "Funny—I don't despise her anymore. I feel kind of sorry for her."

The doctor joined Rose, kneeling beside the queen, who looked dazed and disoriented. "Quite right, too," said the doctor. "She's all alone here. But what you're feeling also has to do with the Rose bulb. It's given you compassion for her." He addressed the queen. "How are you feeling?"

The queen shook her head vigorously, and Rose half-expected her to chastise the two rebel slaves. Instead, her eyes softened and she said, "I'm so sorry. I was so cruel. So much anger, and fear, too—why did they leave me behind?"

The doctor took the queen's hand in his, stroking it gently with his long fingers. "Oh, I think they had their reasons." A rumbling caused the room to tremble around them, and Rose looked around, fearful of the unknown. "Maybe you could ask them yourself."

Rose and the doctor helped the queen to her feet, and she unsteadily walked to the door and out the corridor, with Rose and the doctor supporting her from each side. Outside, a silvery round craft floated above the pyramid, hovering in one spot. The air before them began to shimmer, and two large-headed gray men with oval shaped eyes and long slender bodies materialized. Rose recognized the familiar alien prototype, and knew they were Dogons. The queen's mouth fell open, and a tear rolled down her cheek. A voice began to speak without either one of the men opening their mouths. "Lady Bastet, we received your signal."

"Signal?" said the queen. "I never sent a signal."

The doctor's mouth fell open as he made the connection in his brain, and he said, "I think they mean the transmission from the light bulb."

One of the Dogons responded, "You were a foolish little girl, my lady, playing with the local resonant frequencies, creating hatred."

"Little girl?" Rose whispered in the doctor's ear.

He merely nodded, and the Dogon continued. "But when we saw that you had projected a signal for love and desire, we thought perhaps it was meant for us—that you wanted us to come retrieve you."

Her face wet with tears, the queen said, "But why did you leave me to begin with?"

One Dogon stepped toward her. "You were a hybrid child. You loved playing with the natives. We thought you belonged here more than with our people. Do you want to come with us?"

She nodded wordlessly, her eyes wide like a kitten's. She turned her head toward the doctor one last time, and he smiled and nodded at her. "Thank you, Doctor," she said, turning back to her people to grab one of their hands. A flitter of lights carried the three of them out of sight.

"How about that?" Rose said. "She's just a child. That explains a lot."

"Yeah," said the Doctor. "Bit of a brat, but—"

He shut his eyes and staggered again, and Rose began to worry about him. Lacing her arm around his elbow, she said, "Doctor, we need to get you back to the Tardis, get you well again."

"Good thing I parked close this time," he said, limping toward the blue box, which Rose now saw was parked just outside the entrance to the pyramid. Just as he reached it and began to open the door, he halted and held up a finger. "Oh! I almost forgot—one more thing. We need to get the Rose bulb."

Seeing how wobbly he was on his feet already, she said, "You go in—get some rest. I'll go get it."

He grimaced. "I won't argue with you there."

She ran into the pyramid to retrieve the bulb, rushing quickly back to the Tardis. She couldn't bear the thought of him regenerating again, especially without her there. Inside the Tardis, the control room echoed with emptiness, and she searched him out until she found him lying on his bed, curled up in a ball, still wearing his suit and Converses.

Rose's breath got caught in her throat as she said, "Doctor?"

He lifted his head and opened his eyes, and she sighed in relief. "We've got to take care of that bulb," he said halfheartedly.

She came to the side of the bed and stroked his hair, and he closed his eyes, absorbing her touch like a pampered dog. "It can wait until the morning," said Rose, hoping the tenderness in her voice could convey half of the fondness she felt for him right now. "Night is falling now—you should've seen it, Doctor. The sun shining off the surface of the pyramid, the orange glow, it was gorgeous."

"Gorgeous, right," he mumbled with a smile, his eyes still closed.

"Let me get that tea now," she said, and she moved quickly to put the kettle on and find him some proper food. She had to rouse him to feed him by saying, "You poor thing. I hate to wake you, but your body needs nourishment."

He sat up and took small bites between sips of food. "You know, I'm hungrier than I realized," he said with his mouth full. Then he stopped chewing. "Rose, thank you for taking such good care of me."

The way he looked at her now made her nearly melt to the floor. "You know I'd do anything for you."

"I know," he smiled. "But if you wanted to get into my bed, you didn't need to drag me in here half-unconscious."

"Oh! Cheeky, are we? You must be feeling better."

"Yeah, I am," he said, pushing the tray to the side. "Come here, you."

She lay down next to him and burrowed her body against his. "Doctor, I just realized . . ."

"Hmmm?"

"We unplugged the light bulb."

"Mmhmm—"

"But I adore you even more than before." She settled her head into his shoulder. "I guess you were right—the feelings from the light bulb are real."

When her statement was met with silence, she looked up to see his eyes closed, his mouth half-open in slumber. Although disappointed, she knew that he needed rest to recover, and she curled up with her head rising and falling on his chest in time with his breathing, and fell asleep listening to his hearts beating strong like drums.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Author's notes: **__Chapter 12 got posted, but I'm not sure if notifications went out, because I didn't get one. So if you haven't read Chapter 12 yet, please be aware it's there._

**Secret Door**

**Chapter 13**

The silence woke Rose from a dead sleep, and she shook the slumber from her bleary head, grateful for arousing from a nightmare where the doctor had wound up in a permanent coma and left her stranded with a dog-man husband and Dogon children. But as the fog lifted from her brain, she realized the doctor was no longer lying next to her, and she sat straight up. "Doctor?" she called out, but no answer came.

She searched briefly in the Tardis, and when she still hadn't found him, she shot outside into the bright morning sunlight reflecting red and orange off the pyramid steps. "Doctor!" she called out, standing in the frame of the Tardis door. A pounding resonated through her body, and for a few seconds she couldn't tell if it was from outside herself, or if it was her heart beating with worry.

Glancing around, she heaved a sigh when she glimpsed him sitting on a nearby rock, chisel in hand. He only looked up at her for a second, smiling, and then he returned to his work. She approached him, lecture on the tip of her tongue. "What are you doing? You need to be getting your strength back."

"I'm nearly done," he said, ignoring her scolding. Seeing the object he had worked so diligently on, she sat next to him with the item between them. "Okay, done," he said, stopping his hands.

Her index finger traced the freshly-carved lines in the stone box. "But it's the—"

"One and the same."

"And we're going to put the Tardis bulb—"

"The Rose bulb," he said, stretching out her name as he pronounced it.

"We're going to put it inside here?" He nodded, catching the corner of her eye with his gaze.

"Yeah. And then we're going to bury it right here, next to the pyramid. In a few thousand years, an archaeological dig will find it, and they'll send to the foremost energy expert of the time—"

"Nikola Tesla." She lowered her chin and grinned at him. "You clever boy. You've known this all along."

His teeth shone through drawn lips. "Yeah. Well—not all along. But long enough."

The carvings in the box drew her gaze down once again. "But what is this? The snarling dog?"

His lanky fingers fondled the ones she had rested on the carving. "Not a dog."

"Aaah . . ." She ran her thumb over the crook of his hand, and for a second she wondered if the Rose bulb might still be plugged in, because sparks practically flew at the point where their skin touched. "A wolf. A bad wolf."

"Mmmhmm," he said, mesmerized by their chemistry. "I had to have a way to let myself know it was from us."

Her voice turned soft and seductive. "So why couldn't you just . . . write a message?"

"Would have seemed too out of the ordinary for any historians who found it, and they might have focused more on the box than the contents. It might not have gotten to Tesla then."

She closed her hand around his. "Oh, you brilliant man."

Beaming like a child, he said, "I thought so. Now let's go put the light bulb inside and bury this."

After they finished their work, they stood hand in hand and basked in the achievement that would lead to the events that brought them here. Rose leaned her shoulder into the doctor, relishing the solidity of his presence beside her. Looking up at him, words escaped her, and she didn't know how to tell him how glad she was that he was still alive, that she didn't know what she would do without him, how devastated she had been when he died. But stars consumed his eyes, and somehow she knew that he knew, and he showed her how much he understood by turning to face her, caressing her cheek lightly with his thumb.

That one touch contained unimaginable knowledge and wisdom; in it, the universe shone through and lit up the air between them. For the first time since Rose could remember, the doctor was speechless, and he closed his eyes and pulled her toward him for a colossal hug.

Pressing his cheek against hers, he whispered, "You ready to move on?"

She ruffled the hair on the back of his head. "Yeah, let's get outta here."

After he pulled her by the hand into the Tardis, she remembered something. "Doctor, what about the bulb that went out? If we left it buried, we're still missing one."

He glanced at the Tardis console, and she knew what came next after this—he would return lovingly to the machine, caressing its knobs and controls, running his fingers over them like lightning, focusing his attention solely on the metallic parts as he took control and flew them to a new destination. But he stayed planted on the same spot where he had stopped, turning to face her instead.

He caught a bit of Rose's hair with his index finger, brushing it back from her face. "We'll be fine without the light bulb," he said, cupping her cheek in his hand. "After all, I have the source of its energy right here, in front of me."

A twinkle caught in his eye, and she felt her lips propelled toward him like magnets. Wrapped safely in his arms, locked away securely inside their shielded vessel, she let loose on him, locking her lips onto him, feeling his hearts pounding against her chest. He ate up her passion, his mouth moving with hers until she pulsed in the base of her spine, his hips pressing into her, and she knew she needed more.

He leaned forward, chasing her with his head as she pulled away and eyed the passageway to his bedroom. "Don't stop now," he exhaled.

She flashed him a flirty half-smile. "I just thought—maybe you can give me a tour of your bedroom again."

His eyes widened, and he paused for a beat, running a hand through his hair. "Right." He took her by the hand and cast her one last questioning glance, which she answered with a nod. Grinning, he said, "Allons-y!" as he led her to his chambers.

Once she saw his bed, she was unstoppable—she lunged against him, throwing herself onto him until he toppled backwards onto the mattress. Legs wrapped around him, she put all her weight on him and pushed him flat on his back as he stared in shock. "Rose," was the only word he could get out before she pressed her mouth hard against his while she ground into him relentlessly, running her fingers mercilessly through his tousled hair.

He made a soft "mmph," responding to her assault with palms clasped against her hardened breasts. The touch made her inhale until all breath left her completely, and she pulled her top off so she could get the skin on skin contact that her body craved. Staring down at his astonished face, his mouth forming a perfect circle, she pulsed with excitement, and the sharpness of his arousal against her thighs did nothing to dampen it.

"Oh-ho-ho, Rose Tyler," he said, a grin appearing on his face, "I think I found the key to the true secret door."

She grabbed his cheeks in her hand. "Shut up and kiss me," she said, lowering her hands to unzip his pants as she forced her mouth onto his so hard that she thought she might be the end of him soon. The next few minutes were a blur of clothes coming off and arms and legs intertwining, their mouths somehow interlocked during the entire transaction.

Next thing she knew, he was all over her and in her and she had no idea how he got there but she couldn't slow her heart or her breathing. All she heard was panting in her ear, and all she knew was that he filled her with heat and searing lust and magical pinpricks of ecstasy that travelled up through her spine, leading her legs and arms to numbness.

She could have easily passed out with the bliss of him inside her, and the rapture almost became too much to bear when he traced his fingers lightly down her back while he nibbled on her neck. A little moan escaped her, and she bore down on him over and over, wanting the thrusting to drive him as insane as it made her, and from his half-closed lids she could tell that it did.

And then his teeth gritted, and she knew all it would take would be a few more rhythmic lunges before the residue of his aching desire would become a part of her, and the thought of the germs of his love within her caused her to tremble. Now she lost all feeling and control of her legs, and as every muscle in her body contracted at once, she gasped in surprise as she felt not just his fluid within her, but his mind in her mind as well, and they truly were one at that moment.

Giving into an irresistible urge, she called out in a fierce groan, and she had a vague awareness of his voice softly calling out her name as every pore in her skin opened with a brutal eruption of fire and ash, and she imagined that this must be what every regeneration felt like, and wondered why he ever resisted his own death. When it was all over, the quiet in the room was almost too painful to bear, and she opened her eyes to find the silence interrupted by his admiring stare.

His hands still planted firmly around her waist, he said, eyes sparkling, "I believe that was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

She collapsed against him, their chests still sweaty and warm, and she had to touch his hair every once in a while to make sure she wasn't lying on top of an angel. He grasped her tightly, the tips of his fingers occasionally running cold against her heightened skin. "Doctor," she said, her lips pressed against his neck. "Am I going to die?"

He let out one sharp laugh and said, "Of course you're going to die. Everyone dies."

"No," she said, feeling her heartbeat slowing to match his own. "I mean now. Because that was so powerful, it felt like I was going to pass on. I don't know how to describe—"

"Oh, no, Rose—you're not dying. You've just experienced the passion of a time lord. It'll pass." He stroked her damp hair down against her head. "Or perhaps it was just because of the strength of my feelings for you. Either way, now you know how I feel about you."

"Yeah . . . but can I hear it one more time?"

He only hesitated for a second, and then he spoke each word clearly and deliberately, and she savored each one as it rolled off his lips. "Rose Tyler, I love you."

_End_


End file.
